Hit Rating; A relic?

Since Wrath, Blizzard has been changing the nature of the Hit stat significantly - by making a number of hybrid specs able to gain Hit Rating from their Spirit stat, by normalizing the Hit cap, making Hit and Expertise interchangeable for ranged classes, and even by giving Healer specs passive spells that guarantee a hit cap for certain damage spells. Keeping along with this direction, it seems as though Hit Rating might go the way of Armor Penetration.

While it seems like a plausibly good idea in theory, people having to attain a certain cap before they can focus on other stats, with the advent of Reforging this has introduced the problem of Stat Cascade; i.e. acquiring a new piece of gear which changes your hit Rating often reforging a large number if not all your other items. That, and of all the stats, Hit is the only one that actually decreases your DPS below a certain level, yet provides no benefit once that level is reached.

There are a few possible solutions to this situation, like removing Hit Rating entirely, making all spells and abilities guaranteed to hit (before dodge, parry, etc. come into play, of course). Another is to alter Hit Rating so that while it still detriments your dps below cap, it provides somewhat of a benefit once cap is reached, meaning that going over cap no longer becomes so detrimental.

Stats to cap were problem before they introduced reforging. I remember situations like when I had to drop ilvl of 3 pieces of gear after getting 2H axe from Deathbringer 10H (Ramaldini was its name, or something like that) with ton of expertise. Now it's ok for me.

If you want a game with low level of complexity, try other MMO, like Tibia or MuOnline maybe.

Stats to cap were problem before they introduced reforging. I remember situations like when I had to drop ilvl of 3 pieces of gear after getting 2H axe from Deathbringer 10H (Ramaldini was its name, or something like that) with ton of expertise. Now it's ok for me.

If you want a game with low level of complexity, try other MMO, like Tibia or MuOnline maybe.

I didn't realise opening Askmrrobot and pressing "optimize" was complex.

Armor Pen was removed because it was difficult to understand and had serious problems once you went past 100% ArP (which I think was changed at some point, but still). However, it was relatively easy to deal with (get moar! MOAR! MOOOAARRRR!) without actually understanding how it was helping you.

Hit rating is much easier to understand, yet more challenging to get exactly right. There's a lot more depth to the stat and it makes gearing that much more interesting. Think about how the game would be without hit and expertise: it'd just be a case of getting more numbers constantly. More numbers, more numbers, more numbers. With them, you have to keep considering the hit/exp caps, ensuring you keep them whilst improving your gear.

So nope, hit and expertise are going nowhere. They're nothing like ArP.

---------- Post added 2012-12-26 at 09:35 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Asthreon

I didn't realise opening Askmrrobot and pressing "optimize" was complex.

As ever, it's always worth noting that the vast majority of the WoW playerbase have no idea Ask Mr Robot, or any other fansite, even exists. So yeah, WoW is actually pretty complicated for those much newer to the game.

Armor Pen was removed because it was difficult to understand and had serious problems once you went past 100% ArP (which I think was changed at some point, but still). However, it was relatively easy to deal with (get moar! MOAR! MOOOAARRRR!) without actually understanding how it was helping you.

Hit rating is much easier to understand, yet more challenging to get exactly right. There's a lot more depth to the stat and it makes gearing that much more interesting. Think about how the game would be without hit and expertise: it'd just be a case of getting more numbers constantly. More numbers, more numbers, more numbers. With them, you have to keep considering the hit/exp caps, ensuring you keep them whilst improving your gear.

So nope, hit and expertise are going nowhere. They're nothing like ArP.

The comparison to ArP was a figure of speech, similar to saying 'going the way of the dodo' without actually meaning to compare Hit Rating and Dodos.

Every part of the stat game except hit is about getting more numbers constantly. It is the only stat which is either first or last in priority, never a middle ground.

A big downside to the whole hit rating thing to me, is, simply put, most casual players don't even know it exists/it's purpose. Just as well, almost NONE of them know reforging exists. Blizzard makes zero effort to tell you reforging exists and I've yet to meet a true casual player that even knew that it did. Likewise, you're basically left to your own devices to read the stats page on your character, and to figure out what hit and expertise are, unless you look it up. Resulting in casual players with fairly poor DPS. It's pretty damned arbitrary to have hit/exp to exist, when everyone who KNOWS about them, caps them, and the people who don't, don't. I get really, really, really tired of having to tell every friend once they hit level cap that reforging exists, and having to link them to a website that'll tell them what to do.

I get that people want complex things, and don't want things to be too easy. But you really have to understand the kind of people who play this game... and really, having pretty much zero resources about features in your game IN your game is just abysmally stupid. Like, what? What in the world in WoW mentions reforging at all? A loading scree tooltip? That's it, right? That's stupid. If it were up to me, I'd give menu notices at 80, 85, and 90, about reforging, and give a tiny sentence about what the purpose of it is, and that it "can make you stronger", or something, so people'd be enticed to use it. Then I'd make the reforger give info on each stat listed in simple language. The less outside resources needed to play your game, the better designed it is. This is 2012. Not 1992.

Well, in my personal opinion hit (And expertise too, that's just "hit v1.1") just isn't any fun, or very interesting for that matter, get one (or both if you're melee) as close to the cap as you can, any lower and you're risking missing crucial attacks, any higher and you're wasting stat-budget.

But it's not going away, the hit/EXP caps are a nice way to keep early-tier gear in check (Since you have to reforge a lot to get to the cap with that gear, it's a sneaky way to keep secondary stats a bit lower), so it functions as a sort of "Stat tax" in both the stats themselves and in gold, since over time the reforging costs add up too :P

TL: DR version: hit rating (And expertise) are no fun, not interesting and also not going anywhere soon :P

Stats to cap were problem before they introduced reforging. I remember situations like when I had to drop ilvl of 3 pieces of gear after getting 2H axe from Deathbringer 10H (Ramaldini was its name, or something like that) with ton of expertise. Now it's ok for me.

If you want a game with low level of complexity, try other MMO, like Tibia or MuOnline maybe.

Are you saying WoW is complex? =))

Then that would make EVE for example quantum physics material.

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Also worth pointing out it's unrealistic to be more likely to miss attacks on giant raid bosses right in front of you then lowly mobs.

I think of Hit meaning "effective hit". When attacking a giant raid boss, most people would not do any damage since their hits would bounce off armor pieces or whatever. So Hit is more like a precision stat, which makes it very realistic. Well, as realistic as WoW can be

If you're annoyed by reforging, just DL the addon "Reforge lite", punch in the correct stat weights (often they are already pre programmed) and let it do the reforging for you. That way, implementing a new piece into my setup takes me all about 10 seconds.

While I understand what you mean and why you'd want it altered, I'm fine with the way it is. The static nature of hit/exp is sort of a "grounding" stat. You don't always understand what percentage you want seen on your haste or your crit or even your mastery when trying to start a new spec, but you always know "I need to be hit/exp capped."

That said, I see no reason to accuse you of not understand how to reforge. Topics like this seem to devolve into that rather quickly.

Soothing Mist:"Healing them for a minor amount every 0.5 sec, until you take any other action."Jade Serpent Statue: "The statue will also begin casting Soothing Mist on your target. healing for 50% as much as yours. " [What's half of minor?]
"Statue casts Soothing Mist at a nearby ally for toddler healing."

Once they finally remove Hit from cloth/Intellect non-armor pieces, and give Mages/Locks Spirit ==> Hit, THEN it will be fine how it is.

Until then, I say keep altering or just remove it. It's a stupid stat dump anyways that only really hurts the beginning of an expansion, and is just a minor inconvenience at the end when you have 30% hit rating unreforged.

---------- Post added 2012-12-26 at 08:40 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Moshic

Are you saying WoW is complex? =))

Then that would make EVE for example quantum physics material.

While I've never played EVE, I thought it WAS on the level of quantum physics (at least what I've heard from my friend; it's very difficult/lots of shit to do)

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While I've never played EVE, I thought it WAS on the level of quantum physics (at least what I've heard from my friend; it's very difficult/lots of shit to do)

Eves complexity comes from rules of engagement and that kind of stuff. Anyone with a brain can just google a setup thats cookie cutter for a situation. It's not hard, it just requires planning ahead too. Want good long ranged guns? Train em for 50 days etc.

I didn't realise opening Askmrrobot and pressing "optimize" was complex.

I actually think that is the best agument for removing hit as a stat I've heard to date.

Truth be known hit was never a fun stat it was just something used to limit the players dps output at the beginning of an expansion and it really has lost it's effectiveness with the introduction of mastery/expertise.

I like how Rift does it. You have certain pieces that have hit and you are required to have a certain amount of hit before you can enter each tier of dungeons or raiding. This leads to a more natural progression along the tiers.